


lost in the fire

by flowermasters



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Medical Trauma, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Miscarriage, not canon-divergent but canon-flexible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 02:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: Nightblood serum has some unforeseen side effects. Bellamy and Echo deal—or don't—with the consequences.





	lost in the fire

**Author's Note:**

> There's been extensive talk in the Becho server about several things: 1. Echo telling Bellamy she's a Nightblood; 2. the ensuing Becho hurt/comfort; 3. a Becho baby. And thus this happened. You're welcome?
> 
> READ THE TAGS.

They’re walking across the courtyard together when it happens. Murphy, Raven, and Emori are waiting separate from the crowd about ten yards ahead, and Bellamy is already trying to think of what he’s going to say to them all when Echo takes a funny half-step then stops, exhaling sharply through her nose.

“Echo?” Bellamy says, looking at her, at the way her body has gone slightly rigid. She’s frowning, her face showing discomfort, bordering on pain. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she says, glancing at him, making an effort to smile as she takes another step. “I just don’t feel well, that’s all.”

He’s on a hair trigger, he can admit that, but he’s only just gotten used to not having to actively worry about her again; the words _ Echo’s in trouble, too_, haven’t left him yet. He catches at her wrist, and she turns to look at him. Over Echo’s shoulder, he can see Emori noticing that they’ve paused. Her brow furrows.

“I’m serious,” he says, holding her gaze. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know,” she says, but her face is tight. “It’ll pass, Bellamy.”

“Jackson,” Bellamy says, already turning, feeling the spiral beginning, “we should find Jackson.”

There are other people who need tending to, of course. The smallish infirmary is crowded, made even more so by the stragglers standing around, ostensibly there to watch over actual patients but probably mostly there because it seems like an unthreatening place to be. Bellamy, Raven, Emori, and Murphy now add to that number; there’s at least a chair for Echo to wait in, though she does not look happy to be sitting in it. Someone groans in discomfort near them, and Bellamy glances over reflexively. There’s a man lying on a cot near the door sporting what will undoubtedly continue to develop into one hell of a black eye. Bellamy can’t be sure, not with the man’s face as swollen as it is, but he thinks his might have been the offending fist.

It’s strange to see Jackson at work without Abby somewhere nearby; under other circumstances, Bellamy would say something, try to offer solace, but he can’t now. “What’s the problem?” Jackson asks when he draws close, glancing first at Echo, then Bellamy, then the others.

“I don’t feel well, that’s all,” Echo says. Her posture is stiff and straight, proud, but from his vantage point at her right shoulder Bellamy can see that one of her hands is discreetly gripping the edge of her seat. “I don’t want to waste your time.”

“Nonsense,” Jackson says, smiling tiredly at her. “So what’s the problem?”

Bellamy glances at Raven, who nods once, understanding his meaning without words as per usual. “I’m getting claustrophobic in here,” she says, nudging Murphy with her elbow to get him to shift towards the door. “Bellamy—you’ll find us?”

Bellamy nods, and they go; Echo doesn’t say anything of it, but Bellamy knows she’s a little bit relieved by the way her shoulders drop a bit. She’s still gripping the chair as she tells Jackson, “I’m having stomach pains, that’s all.”

Jackson nods, business-like. He runs quickly through a series of questions, no doubt variations of the same questions he’s asked everyone else in here, and Bellamy is weirdly grateful for their rote nature. Echo’s had no other stomach complaints recently, no fever or chills, and she can’t remember taking any blows to the abdomen.

She doesn’t hesitate to answer anything until Jackson asks, business-like, “So when was your last menstrual cycle?”

“I—before we left space,” she says. “Left the Ring, I mean. I’ve lost track.”

Jackson’s expression doesn’t change, no doubt thanks to years of practice. “Is there any chance you’re pregnant?”

There shouldn’t be. She has an implant, one they found in the freezer in med bay. Harper put it in for her, Bellamy remembers; Echo had been embarrassed to ask, but Harper was sweet about it, of course. She’d told him later, privately, that she’d suspected something was going on, that she was happy for them. Bellamy’s eyes sting, but he blinks it away, forces himself to focus on Echo’s voice over the murmur of conversations being carried on around them.

“Maybe,” Echo says, her voice going tight again. Her hand clenches on the fabric of the chair’s paltry cushion. “I don’t know.”

Jackson nods reassuringly. “There’s an exam room in the back, okay? I’d let you bring Bellamy, but it’s barely big enough to turn around in as it is. I should’ve brought everyone to the palace; that space is much better.” He makes a wry face, as if to say, _ of course it is._

“I’ll wait out here,” Bellamy says, touching Echo’s shoulder lightly as she turns her head to look up at him. She smiles faintly, then rises to her feet.

It’s only as she walks away, letting Jackson lead her through the tight quarters, that Bellamy notices the smear of black on the chair.

It takes exactly thirty minutes for Echo and Jackson to return from the back room. Bellamy knows, because he watches the clock hanging on the far wall, directly above the door to the exam room. He thinks of going to find the others, demanding to know exactly what the fuck kind of trouble Echo’s been in, but he can’t lift his boots from the floor. He just stands there, quietly hating his own uselessness. Then, finally, the door opens, and Echo steps out, her face pale and composed.

Jackson guides Echo to an empty bed in the back and turns as if to beckon, but Bellamy’s already there, having weaved around and through the cots and people to get to them. Echo sits reluctantly on the edge of the bed, not looking at either of them. “Is she alright?” Bellamy asks, his gaze flicking from Echo to Jackson and back again. “Echo?”

“I’m fine,” Echo says, and then she looks at Jackson and nods once, jaw set.

Jackson presses his lips together thinly for a brief second before schooling his expression and looking at Bellamy. “I can’t be sure without a blood test, and I did take a sample, but she’s presenting classic miscarriage symptoms,” he says. “It should—resolve itself, really, but I want her to stay here for a bit. There can be complications.”

“I—Echo?” Bellamy says, looking at her profile. She’s looking at the plain cream-colored stone wall next to the bed, her expression very still. Her hands rest, palms-down, on her thighs. Something twinges sharply in Bellamy’s chest.

When she doesn’t speak, Jackson says, “This kind of thing is very normal in the early months, even without the stress she’s been under recently. The presence of an implant, even a defective one, can cause something like this. It’s also possible, I would say probable, that the Nightblood serum could’ve brought this on. It’s an extreme change to her body chemistry. I told her I’ll want to do some more testing in the future, just to be sure she’s coping, physiologically.”

Bellamy looks at Jackson and nods, aware that he undoubtedly looks visibly helpless but unable to do anything about it. The look that Jackson gives him is soft-eyed and kind. “She’ll be alright,” he says. To Echo, he adds, “Lie down, alright? Rest will do you good. Let me know if you decide you want something for pain.”

Echo nods once, smiling politely, and Jackson clasps Bellamy’s elbow briefly before he leaves them to one another, moving several feet away to check on a woman’s splinted arm. Bellamy watches Echo watching this until he can’t take it any longer. “Echo,” he says, moving from the foot of the bed to sit on the empty cot between hers and the wall. “Baby. Come on, talk to me here.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” she says, meeting his eyes for a beat before looking away, under the guise of swinging her legs up onto the cot to lie down. This gives her the option to stare at the ceiling, which she takes full advantage of. “I wasn’t seriously considering that I could be—well. Not with everything that’s happened. I understand if you’re angry.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Bellamy says, and means it. “God, sweetheart.”

She glances at him, her expression softening slightly. “I’m fine, Bellamy. I don’t need watching over. Jackson is being overly cautious.”

“You’re not fine,” Bellamy says, “I know you’re not. They—they did things to you. They made you a Nightblood.”

Clarke brought Russell down to the ground with the rest of their people; he’s being kept in his palace in chains as they speak. Russell did this to her, directly or not. Bellamy flexes his hands, abruptly restless.

“Don’t even think about it,” Echo says, though Bellamy hasn’t said a word of this. “He’ll face his due when the time comes.”

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his guilt tumbling out of him even as he remembers that this isn’t about him, isn’t about his own self-loathing. It’s about Echo and the awful thing that happened to her, that’s still happening to her right now. But he's failed her, and that’s another awful thing. “I wasn’t here to keep you safe. You could have died.”

“Worse,” Echo says distantly, and she’s right. Then, “It wouldn’t have been your fault. I trusted a coward, and he did as cowards do.”

Bellamy nods. He can do the math. Ryker is dead now, by Echo’s hand; there’s no point in lusting for his blood. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, aching, somewhere, in the deepest parts of himself. “That they gave you the serum.”

Echo’s maintaining her composure well; she’s had a lifetime of practice, of course, and is lethally good at it. But Bellamy is watching her closely enough to see the slight shudder that accompanies her inhale, and knows her well enough to know that the vacant look in her eyes is only surface-level. “I didn’t want to think about it,” she says. “I still don’t.”

She shifts then, moving to touch the crook of her left elbow with the lightest brush of fingertips. She’s got her jacket on, but Jackson said he took some of her blood. Or maybe she’s thinking of whatever injection the Primes gave her, changing her body down to the very marrow. Maybe the memory runs even further than that, a hundred years and millions of miles all the way back to the Mountain itself. “I think I hoped maybe it would have failed after all,” she says, her voice faint. “But it’s still black.”

Though she’s lying down, the color has drained from her face again; Bellamy rises to his feet, spiraling back into panic and looking for Jackson. “Wait,” Echo says, reaching for his hand. “I’m alright. Don’t leave.” 

Bellamy moves back toward the bed, clasps her outstretched hand, and sits carefully next to her on the edge of the mattress. “Are you in pain?” he asks.

“Not much,” she says, licking dry lips. “The worst has passed, I think.”

Bellamy reaches out with his free hand and brushes hair from her forehead, hardly aware that he’s going to do it until he does. “Let me get you some water,” he says. “I’ll come right back.”

Echo nods, so Bellamy goes to fetch her something to drink, looking through various cupboards along one wall until he finds a collection of cups and then filling one at the sink. Echo’s color has already improved when he comes back, and she takes the cup and drinks willingly before setting it on the small table between the cots. “Thank you,” she says, when he sits back down on the cot.

“Don’t thank me,” he says, taking her hand again. “Just rest.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, squeezing her hand, “God, don’t be sorry.”

“I meant I’m sorry about—the baby,” she says, gesturing vaguely at herself and pushing on, heedless, determined to get this out. “That what they did to me did this.”

It is strange, Bellamy has to admit, to be in the process of losing something he hadn’t even known existed; to lose the possibility of something so unexpected is an unsettling thing, and will take time, he thinks, to properly sink in. He can’t imagine how it must feel for Echo, physically or emotionally, although he knows her well enough to know that she likes to handle her feelings in stages, to put them aside until she’s good and ready to address them. She’s not hiding from him, though, and that’s all he can ask.

“I’m sorry, too,” he says. “I would have been so happy if we were going to have a baby. But it’s not your fault, you know that, right?”

“Jackson said the _ natblida _ serum changed my body,” Echo says, looking at him, uncertain. “Beyond just the obvious. He thinks that might be why this happened.”

“Maybe,” Bellamy says, “but it still isn’t your fault. I mean that. Alright?”

“Alright,” she agrees, and squeezes his hand. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” Bellamy says. “And you’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

It’s not a promise he can make; he’s pretty sure they both know, somehow, that this whole thing isn’t over. They haven’t found peace yet. But they have time to rest, at least for a little while, and Echo doesn’t argue when he asks her to try to get some sleep after the night from hell they endured.

It’s been a little over an hour, and some of the initial rush in the infirmary has died down, when Octavia shows up. “Bellamy?” she says quietly from the foot of the cot, startling him. He’s still sitting on the edge of Echo’s bed, though she’s long since fallen into a light sleep.

Bellamy gets to his feet gingerly, motioning for Octavia to move a few feet away. His sister studies Echo from this distance with a furrowed brow. “Is she alright?” she asks.

A part of him wants to rankle at this, still deeply suspicious of this O; somehow, she’s not Blodreina, but she’s not the Octavia he remembers, either. But Bellamy can’t bother tackling that emotion now. There will be time for it later. “She will be,” he says. “What is it?”

Octavia meets his eyes. “Gabriel doesn’t think we should wait to get back to the anomaly,” she says. Then, sympathetically, “I know. I’d like it if you came with us. But if you need to stay here, it’s—” 

“He doesn’t,” Echo says. Bellamy turns to look at her; she’s still lying on the bed, but she’s shifted up onto her elbows to look at them, her expression clear. “I’m still coming with you all.”

“Are you sure?” Octavia says, at the same time as Bellamy says, “No way.”

“I’m fine,” Echo says, giving Bellamy a look that says, quite subtly, _ do not_. “Thank you for coming to check on me, Octavia.”

“Sure,” Octavia says, glancing sidelong at Bellamy. He pretends not to notice. “I think we can give you guys another hour or so if we want to make it to Gabriel’s camp with plenty of daylight left. I’ll stop back by.”

Bellamy nods, and his sister leaves, quickly. “We’re not going,” Bellamy says, moving back towards the bed. “Jackson will never give you the okay for that.”

“Jackson has his hands full as it is,” Echo points out, setting her jaw. “I’m okay. Really. I’ve made longer journeys in worse shape than this.”

Bellamy withholds a sigh. “That is not an argument.”

“I’m going,” Echo says. “I’m not letting you let your sister do this alone.”

“She won’t be—” Bellamy begins, but Echo cuts him off.

“Bellamy,” she says, holding his gaze, her eyes soft, more desperate and doe-like than he’s used to seeing them. “There will be time, afterwards, for us to be at rest. Let’s see this through now. Please.” 

Now Bellamy does sigh, but he can’t argue with her, not today. Not when she’s so clearly grasping at something, even the most abnormal of circumstances, to give her a sense of normalcy, a _purpose_. This is how Echo copes even when she’s hurting or sick, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t understand, because it’s how he copes, too. "Okay," he says. "We'll go."

So he sits down, watches her lie back on her cot for another few minutes of thin sleep. They’ll see this through to the end, he thinks. Then, he has to believe, they’ll have time for what comes after.


End file.
